Page 97 of Better Than the Movies
—How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
“I’m going for a run,” I called as I jogged down the stairs. I rounded the corner to the living room and found my dad on the couch with his feet propped up on the coffee table, watching the news. I was all tied up in knots and didn’t know what to think about anything, so instead of torturing myself, I was going to visit the cemetery.
No less torturous, right?
I looked toward the kitchen, but the only movement I saw in there was Mr. Fitzpervert, rolling on the rug under the table and kicking his catnip mouse with his back paws. “Where’s Helena?”
“The second I walked in, she said she had to go. Had an errand or something like that. Are you okay?”
I had no interest in a heart-to-heart, so I said, “Yep—just tired. Think I might be coming down with a cold.”
He nodded, looked at me like he knew something, and said, “Helena said the same thing.”
“Oh yeah?” I put on my headphones. “Bummer.”
He sighed. “Be careful.”
“Will do.”
After turning on my Garmin, I took off down the street, intentionally avoiding laying eyes onhiscar. I mean, what was with that, anyway? Why did I feel something like nostalgia when I laid eyes upon Wes’s beat-up old car that seemed to have survived our accident without any visible damage?
Nostalgia that made me want to take a bat to his car à la Beyoncé in theLemonadevideo andcausesome visible damage. I’d been replaying everything in my mind, every awful second of what’d happened, and Wes’s rejection was starting to piss me off.
Because it wasn’t just that he’d rejected me. No, it was the fact that he’d known my end goal was Michael, yet he’d still pushed hard on the charm with his dinner date and his Secret Area teasing and his straight-from-The-Notebookkiss in the rain.
HeknewI was susceptible to romance, and he’d used it against me.
And for what?
He was moving on to Alex, so what’d even been the point?
As if that wasn’t bad enough, every time I thought of Jocelyn, my stomach hurt so intensely that I wanted to puke. How was I ever going to earn her forgiveness? I’d been a lying weasel lately, and no matter how much I justified it, I couldn’t find a defense to make it okay.
I turned into the cemetery and was glad it was getting dark, because I didn’t feel like being polite or talking to anyone who might be nearby. Sometimes there were other people there, doing the same thing as me, and sometimes they liked to small-talk. I just wanted to sit by my mother, spill the details of my latest debacle,and then bask in the imaginary feeling that I wasn’t alone.
But when I got closer, I could see a figure standing right where I wanted to be. And just like the time when Wes showed up there, I was instantly—and illogically—irate. Who was in my spot?
The person turned around as I approached, and I saw that it was Helena. Her face was serious, and she was still wearing those paint-stained pants.
“Liz. What are you doing here?” she said.
I raised my hand toward my mom’s grave marker. “No offense, but what areyoudoing here?”
She looked startled by my appearance, almost like I’d interrupted something. She dragged a hand through her hair and said, “I guess you could say I needed a word with your mother.”
“Why?”
“What?”
I inhaled through my nose and tried to stop this unexpected rage from escaping. “You didn’t know my mother, so I don’t understand why you would needa wordwith her. You never spoke to her or heard her voice or even watched asillyromantic comedy with her, so call me irrational, but it just seems really weird that you’re camped out where she’s buried.”
“I was hoping she might know how I can get through to you.” She blinked fast and pressed her lips together, crossing her arms over her chest. “Listen, Libby, I know—”
“Don’t call me that.”
“What?”
“Libby. It’s what she called me, but that doesn’t mean that you need to, okay?”
